


Because We're Real

by Ehiel



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, THIS IS A THING, here have a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5502878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ehiel/pseuds/Ehiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This, James, this is your weapon. Not for making war, but for ending it.” He says, and James vaguely wonders what exactly Tony had been drinking to make him so open. But he knows it wasn’t drinks. It was weeks on weeks of finding each other awake and talking, watching stupid movies when the team was out and one or both of them wasn’t doing themselves any good by being alone, observing one another. Dancing around each other. “It’s a part of you. No matter where it came from or what it came out of, what you do with it is what’s important.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because We're Real

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my second piece for the Winteriron Holiday exchange and it's for the lovely [Terrenis!](http://terrenis.tumblr.com) I hope you enjoy this lovely! I wasn't sure what exactly you'd like, so I went for a bit of fluff and I super hope you like it!
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

“You know, I consider myself fairly well off, but even I can’t keep replacing those forever.” A very familiar voice pulls James out of his head and he stands a moment, panting from exertion, eyes locked a bit absently on the punching bag that was a moment ago in front of him, being pummeled to a pulp, and was now across the room, shoved free of its mountings and burst against the far wall. Christ. Not again. He finally manages to pull his attention from it and turn to look at the figure in the doorway. It’s Tony, naturally, no one else would be up at this god awful hour, much less interested in James’ current whereabouts.  
  
“Government funding.” He answers, nodding towards the burst bag. “The government protects the people, we protect the government. Put it on the tax payers, it’s for their protection.” Tony smiles and for whatever reason it puts James more at ease than the past two hours he’d spent boxing bags.  
  
“Something like that.” Tony says, obviously not interested in that particular topic anymore. “Can’t sleep?” James gives Tony a moment’s once over. He’s got on the same jeans he’d been wearing at breakfast two days ago, but it seems at least he’d had the decency to change his shirt somewhere in the duration of time he’d been awake, but even from across the floor James could smell motor oil and scotch, two sure signs of sleepless nights.  
  
“Could ask the same of you.” James responds evasively, turning his attention down to his hands, beginning to unwrap the gauze. He’d take a shower, he supposed, maybe read a while, maybe just sit a while staring at the wall and contemplating his own existence, whatever he was in the mood for. “Been up a while?”  
  
“Not too long.” A lie, clearly, but James knew what it meant. He nods a little, tossing the gauze in the bin as he nears the bench by Tony to gather his gym bag. “You know, you senior citizens need your sleep. Helps your mental facilities.” Leaning against the wall, Tony crosses his arms lightly. “C’mon, man. What’s keeping you up?”  
  
“My mental facilities.” He answers in a flat tone and when he bends over to take off his gym shoes and toss them in the bag, the arm of his shirt shifts and Tony can see what looks like blood around where flesh meets metal. Tony doesn’t realize he’s staring until James stands again, facing him out of confusion when no retort comes. “Just a little chaffing.” Tony calls his bluff.  
  
“Believe me, I know.” He answers, his tone softer and losing its playful edge as he taps gently against the metal casing of the reactor in his chest.  
  
“Well.” James says awkwardly, tugging at his shirt sleeve. “Now you know why I’m awake. Your turn.” Tony shrugs.  
  
“Been working on something, didn’t really realize the time until it got away from me.” Then, as an afterthought, “Do you want to come and see it? It’s mostly just plans and models at this point, but Steve said you used to be into science in your day. Dragged him on double dates to the Expo.” He waggles his eyebrow a little bit. James knows he ought to just go to bed, or at least try, but with such delicious bait he can’t help but bite.  
  
“Yeah, alright.” He nods. “Taking a shower first.”  
  
“Please.” Tony says in mock disgust, but then laughs and James loses any indignance he harbored before. “Just come down to the lab when you’re ready.” And with that, Tony is gone, disappeared back out into the tower.  
  
\--  
  
The warm water is a luxury James hasn’t known in quite some time and he still hadn’t managed to quite get used to it. Just like he couldn’t get used to the softness of a proper bed, the laughter of people around him, and the freedom afforded by his present situation. But it was growing on him, like everything else was. He was learning. He’d always loved to learn, drank in information like a sponge drank in water, loved the thrill of chemical reactions and the whir of a well assembled machine the most. He’d forgotten how good it felt to just be free to be curious, to ask questions. He’d been trained for so long not to ask, just to do.  
  
When he makes it downstairs, Tony is sat in the middle of the floor, scribbling something on a pad of legal paper sat in front of him. He hardly looks up when James enters and he wonders for a moment if he oughtn’t leave, what with Tony so preoccupied. He must have stood to long contemplating, as Tony, without looking up, pipes up with a,  
  
“You know, you think terribly loud. I can hear your inner monologue from here. Come, sit, sit.” He beckons James with a wave of the hand and James takes it as a cue to sit with Tony on the floor, which he does, leaving a calculated gap between their knees. ”JARVIS, pull up project 329.65.” James looks up from the floor just in time to catch the starburst of holographic blueprints that come to life all around them. He lets out one slow breath, looking around, mouth gaped open in astonishment. He doesn’t realize Tony’s eyes on him, until he speaks up. “Like what you see?”  
  
“This is incredible.” James breathes, taking his time looking around. “How do you… what is… I don’t…”  
  
“Understand? Most people don’t, that’s why I make such good money.” He’s only half joking, but he means no disrespect on account of James’ intelligence. He was well aware the other could be considered quite knowledgeable. Tony just happened to be a genius, which came with its pros and cons. The pros being the fame, the money, the understanding. The cons being the distance, the impersonability, and the lack of understanding from others. It was a give and take.  
  
What the pair fall into then is easy conversation about what’s surrounding them, as Tony carefully explains a system of what was, in layman’s terms, a glorified pacemaker. Not only one that could listen and restart the heart when necessary but could monitor, evaluate, alert, be linked to an app shared between patient and doctor. Artificial valves and a compound that could regenerate tissue. But, while he’s engulfed in telling about it from his scientific state of mind, but James is more or less focused on how excited Tony gets about the implications of his discovery could mean in medicine, in innovation. In how it could help people. The same sort of genius that fuels monsters to build weapons to destroy gives Tony the desire to heal and change, for the better.  
  
“Why?” James doesn’t notice he’s asked the question out loud until Tony stops, mid-sentence, to look at him with a bit of confusion. He clears his throat and clarifies. “Why did you do all of this…?” He says, waving around at the holograms. “Why did you choose this project?” Tony looks around too, but he looks at the holograms a different way than James. It’s not all wonder and fascination, like James has, it’s like he’s looking at an old friend, one he hasn’t seen in some time and isn’t terribly keen to see again, though he’s relieved to see him in one piece.  
  
“Because. I survived a bomb because I was clever. Not everyone’s clever.” Hesitating for a moment, he then reaches to the back of his neck and pulls his shirt off over his head, letting James look clearly at his reactor, betraying that he too has claw marks from his own blunt nails around the object, presumably where he’d tried to rip it out himself, just like James had about his own arm. “They need someone to be clever for them.” He realizes James staring at the scratches, some fresher than others. “I used to hate it. I didn’t understand why it had to be me, to have this happen to them. I was, in my head, Tony Stark with an arc reactor in his chest. But with time, I realized that what had happened to me was a cruel side effect of living and there were, then, two things I could do about it. I could continue to treat it like some tumor, and let it eat me from the inside out until there was no Tony left, and only the reactor, or I could do with it what I’ve always done with the rest of me. Use the skills and knowledge provided to my advantage and, if I’m lucky, the advantage of others. A side effect of that being that I stopped seeing myself as Tony Stark with an arc reactor in his chest and began again to see myself as Tony Stark. Period. I got out of the cave because I was clever and I knew what worked. This…” He taps at his chest. “This is why New York runs on mostly clean energy. This is why I’m alive. And this, if my calculations are right, is what’s going to keep generations of people alive, too. Everything we encounter is a learning experience.” He very pointedly glances to James’ arm, then back to the soldier’s face. “We can learn from it, or we can refuse it, but I promise you one way works out a lot better in the end.” James is speechless for a long gather of moments, before he notices Tony extend a hand. James hesitates, but slowly he extends his left hand out and places it in Tony’s.  
  
“This, James, this is your weapon. Not for making war, but for ending it.” He says, and James vaguely wonders what exactly Tony had been drinking to make him so open. But he knows it wasn’t drinks. It was weeks on weeks of finding each other awake and talking, watching stupid movies when the team was out and one or both of them wasn’t doing themselves any good by being alone, observing one another. Dancing around each other. “It’s a part of you. No matter where it came from or what it came out of, what you do with it is what’s important.” Perhaps it’s weeks of pent up frustration or the fact that Tony addresses the arm so directly, no pity, no dancing, just speaking, and makes James feel like a person, not an arm with a body attached, but when he leans forward and presses his lips against Tony’s it feels right. When Tony doesn’t respond immediately, James pulls back, an apology readily on his lips but before he can speak it Tony is diving forward, hands on James’ thighs, kissing him with all of the passion he can muster and James finds himself drowning in it, a hand risen to either side of Tony’s neck. When they part, which isn’t real parting but rather just separating just far enough to breath, they’re surrounded by silence, but it is not weighted. It’s comfortable. It’s right.  
  
“Thank you.” James mumbles and Tony doesn’t humor him with a response, just kissing him one more time.  
  
At some point they manage to pull themselves away from one another and when Steve finds them the next morning, they’ve fallen asleep on the small couch in the workshop, James’s head on Tony’s shoulder and Tony’s head propped up against the arm of the couch. And for the first time, he thinks, James looks at peace.


End file.
